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Casino bonuses are designed to entice players and attract new players into signing up. All top-ranking casinos offer some bonuses, oftentimes very lucrative ones. There’s really nothing wrong in offering or accepting casino bonuses: they create a wonderful win-win situation where you can get some extra gambling cash and the casino finds a new loyal player.
However, it’s clear that nothing in the world comes completely free. Casino bonuses, while lucrative, hide some strict terms and conditions which might completely change the way you think about casino bonuses. And often, these terms might make you think twice before accepting the bonus.
Wagering Requirement
The wagering requirement is the bane of every gambler out there because, in a way, it completely ruins the bonus offer.
But before we explain things further, let’s just explain why wagering requirements are necessary (even though they’re annoying). Casinos must apply some wagering restrictions as a way to protect their business. No profitable and successful business can just hand out free cash. In the end, the casino wants to find new players but no casino wants to lose money, so wagering requirements are their way of protecting the integrity of their business.
A wagering requirement means that you must play through your bonus money for a certain amount. For example, if the bonus has a wagering requirement of 10 times and you receive a 100-pound bonus, you must play through 1000 pounds before that initial 100 is available as withdrawable money.
But sadly, often the wagering requirement is much bigger than 10x. Most casinos apply wagering requirements between 30-50x, some even go as high as 70x! Even a 30x requirement means you need to gamble with a rather large amount and often, gamblers find that the requirement is simply not achievable for them.
Time Restrictions
You can’t just accept a bonus and hope it’s going to be on your account forever. Naturally, casinos want to speed up the gambling sessions, so each bonus comes with a certain time restriction. Most of the time, you need to fulfil the wagering requirement within 30 days, sometimes within only 7 days.
Keep in mind that if you don’t fulfil the wagering requirement within that time frame, you’ll lose the bonus completely!
Withdrawal Restrictions
This restriction might be the worst of the lot.
Sometimes, the casino restricts how much money you can withdraw from the bonus winnings, even if you’ve fulfilled the wagering requirement. For instance, if you received free spins and won some money and fulfilled the wagering requirement, the casino might not allow withdrawing more than 500 pounds, even if you won more. That means you’ll need to forfeit your winnings.
Luckily, these restrictions are nicely laid out in the casino’s terms and conditions, so make sure you read those thoroughly. Otherwise, you might end up having an unpleasant surprise.
